278 



MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and 

 made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. 

 It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No ; the simple 

 idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with 

 a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes 

 as early as the dispersion from Babel ; and also to snub his stove, and his mili- 

 tary inspirations, his unseemly endeavor to make himself conspicuous when he 



entered Philadel- 

 his kite and fool- 

 in all sorts of such 

 ought to have been 

 fat, or constructing 

 desired to do away 

 the prevalent 

 among heads of 

 Franklin acquired 

 working for noth- 

 m 00 n light, and 

 night instead of 

 ing like a Chris- 

 programme, rigid- 

 make a Franklin 

 f o o 1 . It is t i m e 



phia, and his flying 

 ing away his time 

 ways when he 

 foraging for soap- 

 candles. I merely 

 with somewhat of 

 calamitous idea 

 f a m i 1 i e s that 

 his great genius by 

 ing, studying by 

 getting up in the 

 waiting till morn- 

 tian ; and that this 

 ly inflicted, will 

 of every father's 

 th.ese gentlemen 



were finding out that these execrable eccentricities of instinct and conduct are 

 only the evidences of genius, not the creators of it. I wish I had been the father 

 of my parents long enough to make them comprehend this truth, and thus 

 prepare them to let their son have an easier time of it. When I was a child I 

 had to boil soap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up 

 early and study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry, and do every- 

 thing just as Franklin did, in the solemn hope that I would be a Franklin some 

 day. And here I am. 



